According to a new study, by the University of Michigan, United States found that people, who are in open or polyamorous relationships report being just as satisfied as those in monogamous pairings.

The study coined that, while monogamy is widely accepted as the way to build trust committed heterosexual relationships, people in open relationships (where generally, partners are allowed to have sex, but not be in love with others) and polyamaorous relationships (where partners are involved with more than one romantic pairing) can be just as satisfied, with lower levels of jealously, than monogamous couplings.

The study’s lead author and associate professor of psychology and women's studies at the university, Terri Conley said that overall, outcomes for monogamous and consensual non-monogamous participants were the same, indicating that there was no net benefit of one relationship style over another.

The study analyzed the relationships of more than 2100 people to determine factors such as satisfaction, commitment, passionate love, and jealousy.

The researchers did not find any differences between monogamous couples and those are in consensual and non-monogamous relationships in terms of satisfaction and passionate love, but those in consensual and non-monogamous relationships had lower jealousy and more trust than in monogamous couplings.

The study shows that people in open relationships were more satisfied, had more trust, commitment and passionate love for their primary partner than with a secondary partner, despite assumptions that the pairs in non-monogamous relationships may not care about each other enough to be happy in primary relationships, according to the university.

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